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WHEN the correspondent
again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky were each of the gray hue of the
dawning. Later, carmine and gold was painted upon the waters. The morning appeared
finally, in its splendor with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on
the tips of the waves.

On the distant
dunes were set many little black cottages, and a tall white wind-mill reared
above them. No man, nor dog, nor bicycle appeared on the beach. The cottages
might have formed a deserted village.

The voyagers scanned
the shore. A conference was held in the boat. "Well," said the captain,
"if no help is coming, we might better try a run through the surf right
away. If we stay out here much longer we will be too weak to do anything for
ourselves at all." The others silently acquiesced in this reasoning. The
boat was headed for the beach. The correspondent wondered if none ever ascended
the tall wind-tower, and if then they never looked seaward. This tower was a
giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a
degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the
individual--nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not
seem cruel to him, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent,
flatly indifferent. It is, perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation,
impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws
of his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance.
A distinction between right and wrong seems absurdly clear to him, then, in
this new ignorance of the grave-edge, and he understands that if he were given
another opportunity he would mend his conduct and his words, and be better and
brighter during an introduction, or at a tea.

"Now, boys,"
said the captain, "she is going to swamp sure. All we can do is to work
her in as far as possible, and then when she swamps, pile out and scramble for
the beach. Keep cool now and don't jump until she swamps sure."

The oiler took
the oars. Over his shoulders he scanned the surf. "Captain," he said,
"I think I'd better bring her about, and keep her head-on to the seas and
back her in."

"All right,
Billie," said the captain. "Back her in." The oiler swung the
boat then and, seated in the stern, the cook and the correspondent were obliged
to look over their shoulders to contemplate the lonely and indifferent shore.

The monstrous inshore
rollers heaved the boat high until the men were again enabled to see the white
sheets of water scudding up the slanted beach. "We won't get in very close,"
said the captain. Each time a man could wrest his attention from the rollers,
he turned his glance toward the shore, and in the expression of the eyes during
this contemplation there was a singular quality. The correspondent, observing
the others, knew that they were not afraid, but the full meaning of their glances
was shrouded.

As for himself,
he was too tired to grapple fundamentally with the fact. He tried to coerce
his mind into thinking of it, but the mind was dominated at this time by the
muscles, and the muscles said they did not care. It merely occurred to him that
if he should drown it would be a shame.

There were no hurried
words, no pallor, no plain agitation. The men simply looked at the shore. "Now,
remember to get well clear of the boat when you jump," said the captain.

Seaward the crest
of a roller suddenly fell with a thunderous crash, and the long white comber
came roaring down upon the boat.

"Steady now,"
said the captain. The men were silent. They turned their eyes from the shore
to the comber and waited. The boat slid up the incline, leaped at the furious
top, bounced over it, and swung down the long back of the waves. Some water
had been shipped and the cook bailed it out.

But the next crest
crashed also. The tumbling boiling flood of white water caught the boat and
whirled it almost perpendicular. Water swarmed in from all sides. The correspondent
had his hands on the gunwale at this time, and when the water entered at that
place he swiftly withdrew his fingers, as if he objected to wetting them.

The little boat,
drunken with this weight of water, reeled and snuggled deeper into the sea.

"Bail her
out, cook! Bail her out," said the captain.

"All right,
captain," said the cook.

"Now, boys,
the next one will do for us, sure," said the oiler. "Mind to jump
clear of the boat."

The third wave
moved forward, huge, furious, implacable. It fairly swallowed the dingey, and
almost simultaneously the men tumbled into the sea. A piece of life-belt had
lain in the bottom of the boat, and as the correspondent went overboard he held
this to his chest with his left hand.

The January water
was icy, and he reflected immediately that it was colder than he had expected
to find it off the coast of Florida. This appeared to his dazed mind as a fact
important enough to be noted at the time. The coldness of the water was sad;
it was tragic. This fact was somehow mixed and confused with his opinion of
his own situation that it seemed almost a proper reason for tears. The water
was cold.

When he came to
the surface he was conscious of little but the noisy water. Afterward he saw
his companions in the sea. The oiler was ahead in the race. He was swimming
strongly and rapidly. Off to the correspondent's left, the cook's great white
and corked back bulged out of the water, and in the rear the captain was hanging
with his one good hand to the keel of the overturned dingey.

There is a certain
immovable quality to a shore, and the correspondent wondered at it amid the
confusion of the sea.

It seemed also
very attractive, but the correspondent knew that it was a long journey, and
he paddled leisurely. The piece of life-preserver lay under him, and sometimes
he whirled down the incline of a wave as if he were on a hand-sled.

But finally he
arrived at a place in the sea where travel was beset with difficulty. He did
not pause swimming to inquire what manner of current had caught him, but there
his progress ceased. The shore was set before him like a bit of scenery on a
stage, and he looked at it and understood with his eyes each detail of it.

As the cook passed,
much farther to the left, the captain was calling to him, "Turn over on
your back, cook! Turn over on your back and use the oar."

"All right,
sir!" The cook turned on his back, and, paddling with an oar, went ahead
as if he were a canoe.

Presently the boat
also passed to the left of the correspondent with the captain clinging with
one hand to the keel. He would have appeared like a man raising himself to look
over a board fence, if it were not for the extraordinary gymnastics of the boat.
The correspondent marvelled that the captain could still hold to it.

They passed on,
nearer to shore--the oiler, the cook, the captain--and following them went the
water-jar, bouncing gayly over the seas.

The correspondent
remained in the grip of this strange new enemy--a current. The shore, with its
white slope of sand and its green bluff, topped with little silent cottages,
was spread like a picture before him. It was very near to him then, but he was
impressed as one who in a gallery looks at a scene from Brittany or Algiers.

He thought: "I
am going to drown? Can it be possible? Can it be possible? Can it be possible?"
Perhaps an individual must consider his own death to be the final phenomenon
of nature.

But later a wave
perhaps whirled him out of this small deadly current, for he found suddenly
that he could again make progress toward the shore. Later still, he was aware
that the captain, clinging with one hand to the keel of the dingey, had his
face turned away from the shore and toward him, and was calling his name. "Come
to the boat! Come to the boat!"

In his struggle
to reach the captain and the boat, he reflected that when one gets properly
wearied, drowning must really be a comfortable arrangement, a cessation of hostilities
accompanied by a large degree of relief, and he was glad of it, for the main
thing in his mind for some moments had been horror of the temporary agony. He
did not wish to be hurt.

Presently he saw
a man running along the shore. He was undressing with most remarkable speed.
Coat, trousers, shirt, everything flew magically off him.

"Come to the
boat," called the captain.

"All right,
captain." As the correspondent paddled, he saw the captain let himself
down to bottom and leave the boat. Then the correspondent performed his one
little marvel of the voyage. A large wave caught him and flung him with ease
and supreme speed completely over the boat and far beyond it. It struck him
even then as an event in gymnastics, and a true miracle of the sea. An overturned
boat in the surf is not a plaything to a swimming man.

The correspondent
arrived in water that reached only to his waist, but his condition did not enable
him to stand for more than a moment. Each wave knocked him into a heap, and
the under-tow pulled at him.

Then he saw the
man who had been running and undressing, and undressing and running, come bounding
into the water. He dragged ashore the cook, and then waded toward the captain,
but the captain waved him away, and sent him to the correspondent. He was naked,
naked as a tree in winter, but a halo was about his head, and he shone like
a saint. He gave a strong pull, and a long drag, and a bully heave at the correspondent's
hand. The correspondent, schooled in the minor formulae, said: "Thanks,
old man." But suddenly the man cried: "What's that?" He pointed
a swift finger. The correspondent said: "Go."

In the shallows,
face downward, lay the oiler. His forehead touched sand that was periodically,
between each wave, clear of the sea.

The correspondent
did not know all that transpired afterward. When he achieved safe ground he
fell, striking the sand with each particular part of his body. It was as if
he had dropped from a roof, but the thud was grateful to him.

It seems that instantly
the beach was populated with men with blankets, clothes, and flasks, and women
with coffee-pots and all the remedies sacred to their minds. The welcome of
the land to the men from the sea was warm and generous, but a still and dripping
shape was carried slowly up the beach, and the land's welcome for it could only
be the different and sinister hospitality of the grave.

When it came night,
the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the
sound of the great sea's voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they
could then be interpreters.